


Not Yet

by SomeRainMustFall



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Dani lookin at Malcolm and thinking he's pretty, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, don't we all, he's so pretty when he's uNCONSCIOUS, writers!! show me more sleeping Malcolm you cowards!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 03:26:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21129986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeRainMustFall/pseuds/SomeRainMustFall
Summary: They're not friends.Not yet, anyways.Set in 1x5 after Dani knocked the poor lad into the next episode rip.





	Not Yet

She hadn't meant to hit him that hard.

  
  
The second her fist connects with Malcolm's jaw with a sickening _crack_ she knows he's out, and she almost wishes she'd caught him instead of leaving him to slump against the wall.

"Fuck," she mutters, and shakes her aching hand. "Damn it." 

At least he'd stopped screaming. God, she's still chilled from the sound.

  
  
She lifts him up under his arms, drags him out of the bathroom, and lays him down on his bed. It's remarkably easy to do so. He's thin, probably too thin, and she wonders if he eats as little as he sleeps. 

  
  
Her head hurts. It's been a long day. She hadn't meant for it to go so wrong, _especially_ hadn't meant for Malcolm to get drugged to hell and back. She'd just thought...

  
  
Hell. It doesn't matter what she thought. She shouldn't have gone, and she knows it.

  
  
Sprawled on his bed, a bruise starting to form where her blow had landed, Malcolm looks...small. He looks vulnerable. For someone that usually annoys her so much, when he's not trying to profile her, not _talking, _she likes him a little better.

She remembers the first case Malcolm had worked with them, how he'd fallen asleep in the office and then ran out screaming, trying to get away from something only he could see. How she'd had to hold onto him as tight as she could and repeat to him that it was okay, it was just a bad dream, until he'd come to.

And she was told that after he'd been poisoned, Malcolm had woken up in a panic at the hospital, too scared to be sedated for fear of dreaming again.

To be so scared just to _sleep..._to dream...

  
  
But then...none of it is really a dream, is it? Everything he's seeing, everything he's so afraid of...it happened, didn't it? She can't even imagine what he's seen. She doesn't want to.

Malcolm exhales a little harsher, and she presses two fingers to his neck. His heartrate is still rapid, but not dangerously so. He's going to be fine.

He's made her worry too goddamn often in the time she's known him.

She realizes she hasn't pulled away, and her fingers have trailed up to rest against Malcolm's chin. She means to move back, but instead reaches up to brush the hair from his face. The circles under his eyes look even darker in the dim lighting of his room, and Dani decides she doesn't want to look at him, _think _about him, anymore than she has to.

She puts a hand on her hip, circles to the other side of the bed, and then sits on the edge. Carefully, although she supposed she doesn't have to worry much about waking him, she unties his shoes, slips them off with his socks, and then takes his jacket before positioning him a little more comfortably and pulling the blanket up to his chest. 

He looks small, vulnerable, and yet in a way more at peace than she's ever seen him. She hopes drugs and a suckerpunch isn't the only way to get him there.

_Stop looking. _She has other things to worry about.

She sighs, fastens the restraints onto Malcolm's wrists, and then sits at the kitchen counter.

  
  
They aren't friends. 

Not yet, anyways. But she wonders if they could be. 

The way Malcolm's face had lit up in delight when she'd let the word slip earlier...she's rarely seen him smile like that. So genuinely, with no hidden sadness behind his eyes. 

She smiles a little, resting her head down on her arm.

Yeah. They could be.


End file.
